SANTIAGO BAY. 307 Cringle'sLog," MichaelScott speaks more than once of Santiago, and describes it as only he could describe a West Indian scene. Here is a wordpicture of the Cuban shore and the narrow gate of Santiago Bay as Scott saw them, and as they must have looked to the Spanish officers of Cervera's fleet as they headed for the port on the morning Of May 19th.

were now running. By this time, on our right hand, we were within pistol-shot of the Morro, where the channel is not above fifty yards across ; indeed, there is a chain, made fast to a rock on the opposite side, that can be hove up bya capstanuntil it is level with the surface of the water, so as to constitutean insurmountable obstacle to any attempt to force an entrance in time of war. As we stood in, the golden flag of Spain rose slowly on the staff at the water battery and cast itslarge sleepy folds abroadin the breeze. . . . We stood on, the channel narrowingstillmore, the rocks rising to a height of at least 500 feet from the water's edge, as sharply and precipitously as if they had only yesterday been split asunder; the splintered projections and pinnacles on one side having each their corresponding fissures and indentations on the other, as if the hand of a giant could have closed them together again. Noble trees shot out inall directions, wherever they could find a little earth and a crevice to hold on by, almost meeting overhead in several places, and alive with all kinds of birds and beasts incidental to the climate....

"We were about two miles off the Morro Castle, at the entrance of Santiago de Cuba. Iwent aloft to lookaround me. The sea-breeze blew strong,until it reached within half a mile of the shore, where it stopped short, shooting incat's-paws occasionallyinto the smoothbelt of water beyond, where the long unbroken swell rolled like molten silver in the rising sun, without a ripple on its surface, until it dashed its gigantic undulations against the face of the precipitous cliffs on the shore and flew up in smoke. The entrance to the harbour is very narrow,andlookedfrommy perch like a zig-zag chasm in the rock, inlaid at the bottom with polished blue steel ; so clear and calm and pellucid was the still water, wherein the frowning rocks, and the magnificent trees on the banks, and the white Morro rising with its grinning tiers of cannon,battery above battery, were reflected as if it had been in a mirror. We stood in, the scene becoming more and more magnificent as we approached the land. The fresh green shores of the glorious island lay before us, fringed with white surf. The undulating hills in the vicinity were all either cleared and covered with the greenest verdure that imaginationcan picture,over whichstrayed large herds of cattle ;or with forests of gigantic trees, from amongst which, every now and then,peeped out some palm-thatched mountain settlement with its small thread of blue smoke floating up into the calm, clear morning air; while the blue hills in thedistance rose higher andhigher, and moreand moreblueanddreamy andindistinct,until their rugged summits could not be distinguished from the clouds through theglimmering hot haze of the tropics."

And then the dark transparent crystal depth of the pure waters under foot, reflecting all nature so steadily and distinctly that in the hollows, where the overhanging foliage of the laurel-like bushes darkened the scene,you could not for your life tell where the elements met, so blendedwereearth and sea."

During the siege of 1898 iron chain was no longer used to bar the entrance channel,though a similarold-worlddevice wasemployed to close oneof the inner passagesof the harbour. New batterieshad been erected below the time-worn wallsof MorroCastle, and on theopposite headland of Socapa there were two recently constructed batteries. Otherwise the scene was little changedby the lapse of nearly a century from the days when Scott saw theplace.

As the channel widensto the bay it is divided by an island known as Smith Cay, in memory of some English captain. Then between the wooded hills, scored by many a deep inlet, there opens the outer harbour, more than a mile long and wide, from which a second channel,widerthan the first,leads to the great inner harbour, at the head of which the cityrises along the hillside. There are iron and copper mines in the hills around, and light mineral railways run down to the quays and jetties on both sides of the harbour, while a broad gauge line runs inland from the city And he thus goes on to describe the narrow strait as it appears to a ship making her way through the entrance:— "'By the mark, seven!' sung out the leadsman in the starboard chains. 'Quarter less three!' responded he in the larboard, showing that the inequalities of thesurface at the bottom of the sea, evenin the breadth of the ship, were atleast as abrupt as thosepresentedabove water by the sides of the natural canal into which we